1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an information processing system and a method of controlling the same, and more particularly, to an information processing system and a method of controlling the same, in which a remote control signal is processed without a separate microcomputer for receiving the remote control signal to execute a corresponding operation, thereby reducing a production cost and simplifying a circuit design.
2. Description of the Related Art
Generally, an information processing system such as a computer system, an embedded system, an A/V system, or the like, includes various switches or buttons to allow a user to control and handle the systems.
On the other hand, to enhance a user's convenience, a remote controller is frequently used to control the information processing system.
FIG. 1 is a control block diagram of a conventional information processing system that can be remotely controlled by the remote controller. As shown therein, a conventional information processing system includes a remote signal receiver 103 to receive a remote control signal transmitted when a button of a remote controller 101 is pushed; a clock generator 105 to generate a clock signal; a microcomputer 110 synchronously operated by the clock signal of the clock generator 105 so as to analyze and convert the remote control signal received by the remote signal receiver 103 into a corresponding code, and transmitting the converted code to a south bridge 109 through a keyboard controller 107 (or a USB controller 120); the south bridge 109 to receive the converted code from the microcomputer 110 so as to generate an interrupt signal to a central processing unit 112 and the central processing unit 112 loading a handler from a keyboard device driver (or a USB device driver) when receiving the interrupt signal from the south bridge 109, and transmitting the code converted by the microcomputer 110 to application programs or the like.
The control block diagram of a conventional information processing system shown in FIG. 1 includes a north bridge 114, a main memory 116, a PCI (peripheral component interconnect) controller 118, an IDE (integrated drive electronics) controller, and a reference numeral 124 refers to a BIOS (basic input/output system)-ROM (read only memory) 122.
With this configuration, a remote control of the conventional information processing system occurs in the following manner. The microcomputer 110 analyzes the remote control signal received by the remote signal receiver 103 and converts the remote control signal into data, thereby transmitting the converted data to the south bridge 109 through the keyboard controller 107 (or the USB controller 120). Then, the south bridge 109 generates the interrupt signal to the central processing unit 112. The central processing unit 112 receives the interrupt signal and loads the handler from the keyboard device driver (or the USB device driver), thereby transmitting the converted data to a device driver, an application program or the like to implement a corresponding operation.
However, in the conventional information processing system, A microcomputer 110 is separately required to analyze, convert and transmit the remote control signal. For this reason, a production cost is increased, a separate control program is required according to the type of the microcomputer 110, and a clock generator 105 is required to drive the microcomputer 110.
Further, when system information is needed such as a power management state, etc., the microcomputer 110 receives the system information through a separate interface. Also, when the control program for the microcomputer 110 is updated, hardware logic is additionally required in order to update the control program.
Further, when the microcomputer 110 uses a USB interface, a USB device driver corresponding to an OS (operating system) is separately required.